IBM said last night it will continue to invest in the BPO services space in areas including finance and administration, procurement and supply chain management, HR and Smarter Workforce, and mortgage origination and servicing.

John O'Brien, research hound at TechMarketView, said "[IBM's] aim is to better exploits its investments in software and platforms and closely align them more closely with BPO".

The disposal signalled a "major shift" in the way Big Blue intends to deliver BPO services which could have "significant implications" for the market, said O'Brien.

He added it was "clear for a while now" that IBM views customer services "at an increasingly commodity end of Business Process Services (BPS)".

"Social, mobile, analytics and cloud are transforming this space, but IBM wants to support clients through this customer experience transformation, rather than delivery the actual operations," he said.

The transaction is expected to close in the next couple of months subject to regulatory requirements and customary closing conditions. ®